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Thursday, 19 January 2012

What is SOPA and how does it work? The Stop Online Piracy Act explained

By Nilay Patel on December 22, 2011 04:27 pm

1. I walk by a pretty good bootleg DVD stand a few times a month — the proprietor sets up at irregular intervals in Union Square just a few blocks away from The Verge offices in New York. Instead of just offering up ripped DVDs with handwritten titles in paper sleeves, he sells meticulous copies of the entire package from sleeve to disc label, and there are a few legitimate used DVDs thrown in for flavor. If not for the suspiciously low prices and the occasional printing error, you might not ever know the entire operation was operating in brazen defiance of the law.

2. Stands like these are an important touchpoint when you read or hear about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, and its sister bill in the Senate, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA. Both bills attempt to deal with online sites that traffic in illegally copied content, but at extreme cost of remaking the architecture of the internet itself. That’s a high price to pay, especially since neither bill will actually curb real piracy: SOPA and PIPA are the effective equivalent of blowing up every road, bridge, and tunnel in New York to keep people from getting to one bootleg stand in Union Square — but leaving the stand itself alone.

Let's dig in.

3. What SOPA and PIPA do

Here's what the government can do to foreign websites under even the most narrow reading of SOPA section 102 and PIPA section 3:

Order internet service providers to alter their DNS servers from resolving the domain names of websites in foreign countries that host illegal copies of videos, songs, and photos.
Order search engines like Google to modify search results to exclude foreign websites that host illegally copied material.
Order payment providers like PayPal to shut down the payment accounts of foreign websites that host illegally copied material.
Order ad services like Google's AdSense to refuse any ads or payment from foreign sites that host illegally copied content.

4. (These rules don't apply to domains that end in .com, .net, and .org, which fall under US law — the government has been seizing US domains used for piracy since 2010, and just seized 150 domains last month.)

That's just the first part. SOPA section 103 and PIPA section 4 require payment processors and ad networks to shut down accounts if they receive the right kind of letter from a copyright owner — a system modeled on the heavily criticized notice-and-takedown provisions of the current Digital Millenium Copyright Act that requires a service like YouTube to pull down infringing content after the copyright owner complains. That system has been abused on occasion, but it ultimately works because it allows YouTube to avoid direct responsibility for the actions of its users — it would have been otherwise sued out of existence.

5. There's no such balance of interests for the payment processors or ad networks under SOPA or PIPA: they simply have to block their accounts within five days of getting a letter, unless their accused customer writes back with a letter promising to come to a US court. A site like YouTube would remain protected under copyright law, but become extremely vulnerable to having its finances choked off by overzealous copyright owners under SOPA — imposing a huge additional cost on new startups that host user content and effectively undoing the flawed but effective protections for those services currently in copyright law.
SOPA is a law borne of the blind logic of revenge: the movie studios can't punish foreign pirates, so they are attacking the internet instead

6. Oh, but it gets worse. Much worse. SOPA section 104 offers legal immunity to ISPs that independently block websites that host illegally copied material without any prompting from the government. That's a major conflict of interest for a huge ISP like Comcast, which also owns NBC — there would be nothing stopping Comcast from blocking a foreign video service that competes with NBC if it could claim it had a "reasonable belief" it was "dedicated to the theft of US property." And indeed, Comcast is among the companies that support SOPA.

7. Now, you may have noticed that while all these rules are totally insane, they're all at least theoretically restricted to foreign sites — defined by SOPA as sites with servers located outside the US. That's important to know: at its simplest level, SOPA is a kneejerk reaction to the fundamental nature of the internet, which was explicitly designed to ignore outmoded and inconvenient concepts like the continuing existence of the United States. Because US copyright holders generally can't drag a foreign web site into US courts to get them to stop stealing and distributing their work, SOPA allows them to go after the ISPs, ad networks, and payment processors that are in the United States. It is a law borne of the blind logic of revenge: the movie studios can't punish the real pirates, so they are attacking the network instead.

8. SOPA's proponents argue that the bill will protect US citizens and corporations from the ongoing theft of property outside our borders; that the law is narrowly tailored to only punish those who profit from illegal content. Indeed, it's possible the notice-and-takedown system for payment providers could potentially resist abuse: unlike YouTube's reflexive takedowns, it's hard to see a credit card processor turning off a paying account just because it gets an angry letter in the mail. But that's just one piece of the puzzle, and the deep concerns about tinkering with the DNS system have never been adequately addressed by any of SOPA's sponsors or supporters.

9. Last week saw a flurry of activity around SOPA as the House Judiciary Committee opened "markup" hearings, during which amendments are debated and the committee votes whether to bring the bill to the full House of Representatives. For a moment, it appeared as though SOPA co-sponsor (and Judiciary Committee chairman) Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) would breeze through the markup process and hold an easy vote, but SOPA opponents demanded that the committee first bring in technical experts to testify about the impact of the law on the internet — the committee has only heard from content industry representatives until now. The hearings lasted for nearly 12 hours on Thursday and for several more on Friday until they were abruptly adjourned, with Smith promising that they would re-open as soon as possible.

10. That now looks like it'll happen in early January, but don't expect the controversy to die down in the meantime — SOPA has been deeply criticized by nearly every company that does serious business online, but I'd expect the content industry to push back just as hard as we get closer to the second set of hearings. At the same time, outspoken SOPA opponents like Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) will be taking the opportunity to promote the rival OPEN Act, which does away with the DNS redirect provisions of SOPA but still attempts to cut off payments to foreign infringing sites after hearings at the US International Trade Commission. And we'll go through all of this again when PIPA comes up for debate in the full Senate after being unanimously approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This battle is far from over.

Questions:
1. What measurements do you think as adequate to combat online piracy?
2. Do you think SOMA is a good idea?
3. How is your country combating piracy?

Exercise 2: Choose a word from Exercise one to complete the following sentences:
1. I'm going to have a party on _________.(Ooo)
2. My grandfather is _______ (Ooo) years old.
3. In Europe the weather is warm in _______ (oO)
4. Goodnight. See you ________ (oOo)
5. I often sleep one hour in the __________(ooO)

Tuesday, 8 November 2011

When we say the letters of the alphabet the letter A has the long vowel sound /eɪ/, we say this sound when we pronounce the word 'plane'. But A can also be pronounced as the short vowel /æ/, as in the word 'plan'.

In spelling: We frequently have /æ/ with the following letter combinations:
1. a-consonant: cat (But if there is an 'R' after 'A' and this 'R' has no vowel sound after it, the sound of this 'A' will be /ɑː/)

Important observation: In most English accents, these words have the vowel /æ/: ask, dance, task, castle, bath, fast among others, but in South East England, speakers replace the sound /æ/ to /ɑː/.

Exercise:

1. These words all have the vowel sound /æ/. Change them to /eɪ/ using the same consonants.

Friday, 21 October 2011

2 – Seeing the time inside the tenses: The Present Simple vs the present continuous

In our last lesson we studied how the verbs can be classified as stative or dynamic verbs according to their duration. We also studied that stative verbs can't be used with continuous tenses because we can't establish their duration. Today we'll go a little deeper and we'll see how the duration has its influence over sentences in the present simple and the present continuous.

The present simple - He, she, it + s - Interrogative Do/Does;

Negative Don't/Doesn´t.

The main characteristic the present simple shows us when we consider the duration of the verbs is the fact that this verbal tense talks about a 'wide present', that is, we can't precise when the action or the state the subject has got started and we can't also precise when it will finish. The only thing we know it that the information provided by the verb happens in a moment of time we call present, and this 'present' is flexible. We can consider the period of time we want in our minds. For this reason the present simple have the following uses:

We use the present simple for:

*thoughts and feelings - I think so. I like it.

* states, things staying the same, facts and things that are true for a long time: We live quite near

* repeated action: We come here every year.

* Meaning future when we're talking about a time, usually a public one such as a train timetable: The train leaves at seven thirty-three tomorrow morning.

The present continuous - am/are/is + main verb + ING

While the present simple talks about a 'wide present', the present continuous does the opposite.

The main characteristic of the present continuous is to point a specific point inside this 'wide present' and thus establish much more precisely when the information provided by the verb took place. Contrarily to the present continuous we can't consider the time freely because the moment when the action happens is at least considered as the moment of speaking. Another important thing we must remember is that stative verbs are never used in the present continuous once these kinds of verbs, by definition, provide information that we can regard as outside an established time.

For this reason it is extremely important to be aware about the context you provide to the person you are sharing information.

We use the present continuous:

* When we are in the middle of an action - I'm waiting for the train.

* When things are changing after a long period of time: The number of cars in the road is increasing

* Meaning future for what someone has arranged to do in the future: - I'm meeting Harriet at six o'clock.

At work Alan is talking to Mark in the corridor. Complete their conversation using present simple or present continuous.

Thursday, 20 October 2011

a ) Look at the title and the picture. What kind of story is it? Does it interest you?

b) Read the back cover. Can you understand the story? What's it about?

c) What's White Death?

Back Cover:

WHITE DEATH

Sarah Harland is nineteen and she's in prison. At the airport they find h... in her bag. So now she's waiting to go to court. If the court decides that it was her h..., then she must die.
She says she did not do it. But if she did not, who did? Only two people can help Sarah: her mother and an old boyfriend who does not love her now. Can they find the real criminal before it is too late?

Part 2

Read Extract 1 once. Answer the questions.
1. What do you know about the woman?
2. Which country is she in?
3. What does she want to do?

EXTRACT 1

The woman (stood) in front of the (prison). The woman was very (hot), and she did not like the (noise) from all the cars in the road. She was an English woman and she did not like hot countries or a lot of noise. She was tall, about fifty years old, with blue eyes and a long (face). Her face was red, and she looked tired and (angry). She (knocked) at the door of the prison. For a long time nothing happened. Then a little window opened in the door, and a man looked at her.

Part 3

1. Read Extract 1 again. Are the words in round brackets nouns, adjectives, or verbs?
2. Guess the meaning of the words.

Part 4

Read Extract 2. Who are the woman, the man and the girl?

EXTRACT 2

'Yes? What do you want?'
'I want to see my daughter. It's very important.'
'Name'
'Anne Harland'
'Wait a minute.'
After twenty minutes the door opened. 'Come with (me)', the man said. She walked a long time, past hundreds of doors. Then the man opened one of (them). 'In here´, he said. 'You can have ten minutes'. Anne Harland walked into the room and the man went in after (her). He closed the door behind (him). There was a table in the room, and two chairs. On one of the chairs sat her daughter. (She) was a tall girl, about nineteen years old, with big blue eyes.
'Mother!' she said. 'I'm so happy to see (you).'
Part 5

1. What do the pronouns in round brackets mean?

Part 6

Read Extract 3. Answer the questions

1. When and where did the police arrest Sarah?
2. Was she alone?
3. What did the police find in her toothpaste?
4. How does the story end?

EXTRACT 3

'Sarah, what happened?' she said. 'When did they bring you to this prison?'
'Last week, I think. Yes, last week. At the airport, when we arrived ... The police stopped us, and looked in our bags. They said there were drugs in my bag. Then they brought me here'.
'I see. Where were the drugs, then? Where did they find them?'
'Didn't they tell you?' Sarah looked up, and there was a smile in her face, but it was not a happy smile. 'The drugs were in a tube of toothpaste.'
'And you didn't know about it?'
'No, mother, of course not. Do you think I clean my teeth with heroin?'

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

We
can divide a word in one or more syllables. For example 'mum' has
only one syllable, 'mother' has two syllables and 'grandmother' has
three. A syllable is a group of one or more sounds. The essential
part of a syllable is the vowel (V). Some syllables are just one
vowel sounds as in eye /aɪ/ and owe /əʊ/.

Syllables
can have consonant sounds (C) before the V (CV), after the V (VC) and
before and after the V (CVC). Here are some examples. All the words
has only one syllable.

CV
– go /gəʊ/;
my /maɪ/; know /nəʊ/;
weigh /weɪ/.

VC
– if /ɪf/; egg /eg/; ice /aɪs/; eight /eɪt/.

CVC
– ten /ten/; nose/nəʊz/;
mouse /maʊs/;
knife /naɪf/.

Remember!
Letters are not the same as sounds. For example the consonant letters
'w' and 'y' are not consonant sounds if the come after the vowel in
words like 'law' /lɔː/ and 'pay' /peɪ/. They are part of the vowel
sound, that is, 'aw' = /ɔː/ and 'ay' = /eɪ/. It can also happen in
some southern English accents with the letter 'r', for example: car
/kɑː/, hair /heə/
and poor /pɔː/.

It
is common to call syllable the number of parts in a written word. In
phonetics, syllable is the number of times we need to emit a sound to
pronounce a word. For example we can divide the word chocolate as
cho-co-late, but when we say it, we only pronounce two syllables
/ˈtʃɒk.lət/. The dot shows the syllabic division. Here are some
other examples. Some words may be pronounced with fewer syllables
than in writing: different /dɪf.ər.ənt ; comfortable
/kʌm .fə.tə.bl/; interesting /ɪn.trəs.tɪŋ/; *secretary
/ˈsek.rə.tri/. (* In American English this word is pronounced
/ˈsek.rə.ter.i/).

The
first syllable in these words has the same sounds, but in the
opposite order: chicken /ˈtʃɪk.ɪn/; kitchen /ˈkɪtʃ.ən/. When
we build a sentence with similar words like these, it may be
difficult to say. It is called 'tongue-twisters' like in: Richard
checked the chicken in the kitchen.